“Anything of importance that will ever happen to you will be previewed in a dream.” — Awakening Your Psychic Powers: An Edgar Cayce Guide, by Henry Reed PhD.

One night when I was a child, I had a vivid dream that shook me to my bones. In this dream, my dad died in a car accident while driving to work. When I woke up, the dream seemed so real that I believed it.

The next morning at the breakfast table, while Dad was still upstairs, I told my mom about the dream. I told her that I didn’t want Dad to go to work. I thought if he did, he might die.

“Your father has enough pressure at work and he really doesn’t need to hear negative things right now.”

I persisted. “But Mom, I really think I should tell him. Please?”

“No. Please, honey, don’t upset him with this. Promise me.”

I didn’t want to upset my dad. Besides, Mom was always right about things. She was probably right about this too. Maybe I was getting worked up for nothing. It probably was just a bad dream—a nightmare.

“O.K., Mom. I won’t tell him,” I promised.

I let go of the issue and dug into my cereal. As Dad made his way out the door, I said, “I love you, Dad.”

He winked at me and said, “I love you too, Golden-girl,” just like always.

I grabbed my books and walked to school. By lunch, I’d forgotten about the dream.

Later that night I sat down to the dinner table as usual. My mom had dinner ready to serve, but Dad wasn’t home yet. Six-thirty came and went. Still no Dad.

I looked at the painting of Mary Poppins on the wall across from the table. It was bought after Mom had taken me to see the movie Mary Poppins years ago. I loved the movie because Mary Poppins helped Mr. Banks get closer to his children, Jane and Michael. It wasn’t until Jane and Michael wrote the want-ad for a nanny that Mary Poppins showed up and changed everything.

I didn’t need Mary Poppins, because my dad was always here for me at six o’clock sharp. It was a familiar routine to give him a big hug when he came home.

But tonight he wasn’t here. The tick-tick of the clock began to sound louder and slower than usual. Every second turned into an eternity.

Finally Mom picked up the phone and dialed the office. “An hour ago? Are you sure? Okay. Thank you.”

She hung up the phone. “He left at five o’clock, as usual.”

Seven-thirty came and went. I didn’t move from the table.

Mom started pacing. “Maybe he ran an errand. But I don’t remember him telling me . . .”

No matter how hard I tried to believe that he’d gone to the store or some other place, I really felt like something bad had happened to Dad.

“Why don’t you eat? It’s late,” Mom said.

I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.” The kitchen had grown bigger, hollow and otherworldly with the constant heavy strike of the second hand.

I looked through the sliding glass door that led to our backyard. There was no wind tonight, and I was old enough to know that Mary Poppins wouldn’t sweep down from the sky with her umbrella to help me or Mom.

I began to write my own want-ad in my head:

Dear God,Please help us stay together. Please find my dad.

Then a few minutes before eight o’clock, my dad walked up to the sliding glass door along with a police officer. In one hand, Dad held his briefcase; in the other, the snow scraper from his car. His eyes were wide as if he was permanently surprised. Mom opened the door. I yelled, “Dad!” and ran to him.

The officer said that my dad was in a car accident while driving home from work. Dad further explained how he’d been pushed down a steep ravine to the very edge, with his car swaying back and forth, ready to drop at any moment. He’d had to be carefully maneuvered from the car.

Suddenly I understood that one move in the wrong direction would have meant disaster. My father had almost died.

Later that night, with the three of us finally sitting at the dinner table, Mom said, “Isn’t that strange? Your dream last night?”

Suddenly I remembered the terrible dream.

Dad asked, “What dream?”

I told him all about it. My mom apologized for not letting me tell. Dad said he believed it was a premonition.

Even though in my dream Dad was going to work, not coming from work, I knew it was a premonition. I felt grateful that part of my dream hadn’t come true. Dad was alive and here with us.

Dad leaned across the table and said, “The next time you have a dream like that, you let us both know.”

I said, “Okay, I promise.” To this day I’ve kept that promise.

Since that event, I’ve had many precognitive dreams. Some concerning my father; some concerning other loved ones. Over time, I’ve learned to discern which dreams are precognitive and which are not. The precognitive ones bring a sense of urgency to tell a particular person the information in the dream.

Perhaps when all of our souls are on the “other side,” before we’re born, we make promises to warn each other of what’s to come, as a form of protection, or a form of love. I just know that I’m thankful for all of my dreams and the guidance they continue to bring.

Precognitive dreams can come to anyone. I wasn’t “special” when mine started happening. I was just a girl going to elementary school, playing with friends, and making sure I finished my homework on time.

All my life I’ve kept a journal, starting at a very early age. My journals included writing down my dreams and trying to interpret them. Edgar Cayce said that dream journals not only help us to remember our dreams more clearly each time we dream, but they help to keep us open to receiving new dreams and the guidance that comes through them.

Yvonne P. Gleason has always been fascinated by dreams and their meanings. Her journals usually have plenty of dreams—some with messages—and some still left to be “translated.” Currently she is taking a course on dream interpretation at Atlantic University as part of the Spiritual Guidance Mentor Training certificate program. This is her first blog post for Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E.